Solar Ovens: The Route to a New Era

Have you ever seen a solar oven in a backyard? Have you ever seen somebody cooking with a solar oven? Solar ovens would be an easy addition to everyday life that would save tons of money and gas resources. There are several types of solar ovens, and they are all fairly simple to make. They require a few household materials, and other materials found easily at your nearest hardware store.

Solar ovens work through a process called convection. Heat is trapped in the parts of a solar oven and then relayed back through the pot into the food. Depending on the type of solar cooker you are interested in creating, they reflect in different ways. For example, parabolic cookers use reflection of the sun into a direct point into the pot while solar kettles trap heat in a glass tube and convey the heat through the bottom of water. Solar ovens generally use the sun as a gas oven uses gas, by turning it into fuel, which burns creating heat. The same principal is applied to solar ovens. They take the sun or ‘fuel’ and use its heat to cook food. It is simply making the burning part obsolete, therefore being more environmentally friendly.

Panel cookers are fairly simple to obtain. Panel cookers are among the most popular solar cookers. They are very easy to obtain by buying them. In 1994, Solar Cookers International, or SCI, created the first production solar cooker, the CooKit. It generally costs around five US dollars. The HotPot, developed by US NGO Solar Household Energy, Inc. is a new innovation that can be used with panel cookers. It has a clear lid and can be suspended so it creates more surface area for the sun to heat and it allows users to view the food as it is prepared. As an alternative to spending money, cardboard, tin foil, and a black pot are as good as anything to create your very own panel cooker.

Solar kettles are solar thermal devices that are generally used to heat water to its boiling point so as to remove any pathogens. They are solar vacuum glass tubes with liquids, generally water, inside them. Because they work on accumulated solar energy, rather than direct solar energy, they are ideal for boiling water over night during camping trips or other outdoor adventures. Because solar vacuum glass tubes are not easy to obtain, you will have to visit a science store or online science resource to have one of these handy cookers.